Sitemap Analysis & Generation
seo-sitemap
Analyze existing XML sitemaps or generate new ones with industry templates. Validates format, URLs, and structure. Use when user says "sitemap", "generate sitemap", "sitemap issues", or "XML sitemap".
SKILL.md
Full skill instructions
Sitemap Analysis & Generation
Mode 1: Analyze Existing Sitemap
Validation Checks
- Valid XML format
- URL count <50,000 per file (protocol limit)
- All URLs return HTTP 200
<lastmod>dates are accurate (not all identical)- No deprecated tags:
<priority>and<changefreq>are ignored by Google - Sitemap referenced in robots.txt
- Compare crawled pages vs sitemap — flag missing pages
Quality Signals
- Sitemap index file if >50k URLs
- Split by content type (pages, posts, images, videos)
- No non-canonical URLs in sitemap
- No noindexed URLs in sitemap
- No redirected URLs in sitemap
- HTTPS URLs only (no HTTP)
Common Issues
| Issue | Severity | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| >50k URLs in single file | Critical | Split with sitemap index |
| Non-200 URLs | High | Remove or fix broken URLs |
| Noindexed URLs included | High | Remove from sitemap |
| Redirected URLs included | Medium | Update to final URLs |
| All identical lastmod | Low | Use actual modification dates |
| Priority/changefreq used | Info | Can remove (ignored by Google) |
Mode 2: Generate New Sitemap
Process
- Ask for business type (or auto-detect from existing site)
- Load industry template from
assets/directory - Interactive structure planning with user
- Apply quality gates:
- ⚠️ WARNING at 30+ location pages (require 60%+ unique content)
- 🛑 HARD STOP at 50+ location pages (require justification)
- Generate valid XML output
- Split at 50k URLs with sitemap index
- Generate STRUCTURE.md documentation
Safe Programmatic Pages (OK at scale)
✅ Integration pages (with real setup docs) ✅ Template/tool pages (with downloadable content) ✅ Glossary pages (200+ word definitions) ✅ Product pages (unique specs, reviews) ✅ User profile pages (user-generated content)
Penalty Risk (avoid at scale)
❌ Location pages with only city name swapped ❌ "Best [tool] for [industry]" without industry-specific value ❌ "[Competitor] alternative" without real comparison data ❌ AI-generated pages without human review and unique value
Sitemap Format
Standard Sitemap
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
<url>
<loc>https://example.com/page</loc>
<lastmod>2026-02-07</lastmod>
</url>
</urlset>
Sitemap Index (for >50k URLs)
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<sitemapindex xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
<sitemap>
<loc>https://example.com/sitemap-pages.xml</loc>
<lastmod>2026-02-07</lastmod>
</sitemap>
<sitemap>
<loc>https://example.com/sitemap-posts.xml</loc>
<lastmod>2026-02-07</lastmod>
</sitemap>
</sitemapindex>
Output
For Analysis
VALIDATION-REPORT.md— analysis results- Issues list with severity
- Recommendations
For Generation
sitemap.xml(or split files with index)STRUCTURE.md— site architecture documentation- URL count and organization summary